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Poorer Nations Hit with 'Exorbitant' Consultancy Fees for Carbon Offset Projects
The UN-certified scheme that allows developed nations to pay for carbon reductions abroad instead of making domestic cuts has come under fire for paying high fees to consultants from rich countries.
A woman sits on her land near the river. The Nepalese government subsidises farmers to install equipment that turns animal and human waste into methane cooking fuel, using less firewood. (Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian) The Guardian has learned that the Nepalese government has so far paid a Norwegian company €150,000 to verify a greenhouse gas reduction programme for which it is seeking carbon credits. That sum would pay for 340 of the small-scale carbon cutting projects the government is trying to set up.
Seperately, the conservation charity WWF pays €20,000 (£16,000) per verification visit for a smaller project using the same technology, but under a different scheme.
Kyle Ash, a Greenpeace official in Washington DC called the fees "exorbitant" and questioned the entire UN-administered cap and trade system. "It doesn't seem like a good investment especially when there are other ways to reduce emissions," he said.
"We need to restrict global warming pollution [in industrialised countries]," he said. "And we need to finance clean development in third world countries. But the two things aren't connected."
Stein Jensen, a spokesman for the Oslo-based consulting company used by the Nepalese government, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), said that there is such competition to provide consultancy services that the fees reflect the market rate. He added: "for small projects the transaction costs are high."
The UN says verification is necessary to ensure that schemes attracting carbon credits really do lead to reductions in CO2, but it has currently approved only 33 companies worldwide to evaluate carbon offset projects.
Samir Thapa, an official with the Nepalese government's Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, said the demand for evaluators outstrips the number of companies available. "You may have to wait to validate your project for six months or one year," he said. "Economically, that's not very viable for the project, especially in terms of smaller projects like ours."
The Nepalese government has been working since 2006 to receive UN certification to sell carbon offsets for two biogas projects. The government subsidises farmers to install equipment that turns animal and human waste into methane cooking fuel. Under the scheme, local people will use less firewood and other fuels, thereby reducing carbon emissions.
The government paid DNV €150,000 (£123,000) for initial site visits and related services. It will have to pay €50,000 (£41,000) for subsequent annual visits. Nepal hopes to complete the UN-administered certification process by the end of this year and ultimately wants to build 200,000 biogas installations. It expects to earn $400,000 (£259,000) per year in carbon credits.
The biogas equipment currently costs $575 (£372) per household, a significant sum for farmers earning under $1,500 (£971) per year. The government offers partial subsidies, but farmers must spend some of their savings and take out microcredit loans to pay for the rest.
Villager Sabitri Dairi said the scheme had brought environmental benefits. "It's harmful to the forest and the environment to cut firewood down. There could be landslides and floods."
WWF helped finance the biogas for people in Badreni, a village in the south of the country near Chitwan national park. In a project separate from the Nepalese government's, WWF hopes to raise $1m for a microcredit fund by participating in the voluntary carbon offset market. Voluntary credits are not recognised by the UN as meeting a country's carbon reduction goals under the Kyoto protocol. But participants such as WWF must go through a similar validation and verification process as those who do.
WWF will get credit for each tonne of carbon not produced as a result of using biogas. It sells the credits to the Zurich-based NGO Myclimate, which in turn provides offsets to individuals, airlines and other European companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprints.
Thomas Finsterwald, project manager with Myclimate, admitted that the high fees make "it difficult to do small projects." He said inspection fees might eat up 40% of income for some other projects. "This is really a problem."
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Show AllThere's way too much opportunity for shell games and questionable accounting practices with carbon-trading schemes. Not to mention the overhead and the cottage industry it creates for auditing companies, as pointed out in this article. And too many of those companies would seem prone to bribes and conflicts-of-interest.
So keep it simple. Just institute a tax on carbon fuels.
That won't go over well with the North American consumer -- because it won't be "hidden" from them through a network of indirect connections, and because (gulp) it will be called a "tax". But it will be more efficient, and more effective, at weaning us off of fossil fuels. And fairer, if you believe that those most addicted to the stuff should be forced to ante up more than those who are not.
Sooner or later North Americans need to suck it up and realize that the age of Cheap Abundance is over ... at least, over when it comes to fossil-fuel-subsidized consumption.
"The only thing they emit is money" (sarcasm)
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=168077
350 Reasons Why Carbon Trading Won't Work!
Written by Rising Tide North America
Saturday, 24 October 2009
The 350 reasons pamphlet can also be downloaded starting at www.350reasons.org.
350 Reasons Why Carbon Trading Does Not Work
Here are just a few:
Carbon Trading prevents the world’s largest historical debt from being paid. The world’s major polluting corporations owe this debt to poor, frontline communities around the world – communities that contribute the least to, and suffer the lion’s share of the impacts of climate change.
Carbon Trading creates fraudulent derivative markets that reward the biggest industrial polluters and their financiers with windfall profits, while stealing natural resources such as clean air, clean water, clean soil and clean food from the global commons.
Carbon Trading allows corporations to finance or create carbon dumps in the Developing World while continuing to emit toxic climate pollution in the backyards of working poor, Indigenous and people of color communities in Developed Countries.
Carbon Trading impedes democratic governance by allowing corporate polluters, market managers, and commodity traders to determine whether and where to reduce greenhouse gases and toxic co-pollutants without allowing frontline communities to participate in those decisions.
Carbon Trading perpetuates subsidies and support for major industrial polluters such as big oil and energy companies, and creates new financing for bogus corporate solutions such as clean coal, safe nuclear, bio-fuels and waste incineration – adding more polluting smokestacks in the backyards of already-burdened communities
Carbon Trading keeps much-needed resources from being invested in real solutions and just transition strategies in renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy conservation, waste reduction, economic localization, closed-loop production, healthcare, public education and affordable housing.
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/take-action/350-reasons-why-carbon-trading-wont-work-4.html
There is this this thing called "Cap and Trade". As soon as one hears the word "trade", one should become very sceptical. One should be even more sceptical if the likes of Goldman starts sniffing around. Any such marketing must be heavily regulated ( and not by the UN ), since someone will always be out there looking to suck as much money as possible out of it.
I'm glad the blinders are starting to come off, All the carbon, trade tax, footprint, nonesence is just a smoke screen for the truth. Theres too many people! If we try to play hide the pebble from the planet polluting massively here, but telling ourselves hey it's ok were paying Nairobi not to light a cookfire tonight. It's just a lie and we will pay the price.
Nuclear and orbital solar could help a bit, but the breeders have to be contained! Theres no choice we either cut our population 2/3 or were all dead in a thousand years, or less.
Triage; is the term meaning seperating out those who can be saved from those who must be let die. We're almost out of time to pretend to do gently, in another hundred years, Oceans will be breaking over their dykes in NYC, London and SF, pepole will be panicing then and will have to be removed in masses by military means.
SO it's up to you, every little mouth condemes the next, on down the line.
How are we gonna remove Four-Billion people in the next 50 yrars!
>^^<
"How are we gonna remove Four-Billion people in the next 50 yrars!"
We very plainly are not going to remove four billion people.
Carbon "trading" and carbon "offsets" are just more stupid evil con games set up by large polluting nations, see USofA, Europe and others to dump the actual pain of reducing carbon emissions onto other, poorer peoples and countries. Corporate greed and national greed, all in the same boat on this vile scam...
What's next, stupidity offsets or imperialism offsets? How about some robotic drone murder offsets for the Prince of War, Barack Obama?
Opposing this carbon trading BS and the big mining companies got Kevin Rudd former Australian prime minister bounced from being party leader and prime minister by Australian Labor which just got itself into a general election which Rudd's successor called for but ended up with the same kind of hung parliament as occurred the British general election months ago, which means no outright winner in a parliamentary system, thus we have a party which dropped a party leader to appease the carbon trade pushing jack asses and the big mining companies, then the replacement for Rudd then couldn't lead the party to a real victory in the election. This will likely turn out to be a loss not just for Australian Labor but for the Australian people. The lowest Rudd's popularity got down to in the polls was 50%, at that was the reported lowest in the Australian media. That's nothing in politics for the party of government as it's called or in our system for an incumbent president. This is the "New Labor" BS that got started in Australia back a little after the coup against Gough Whitlam as John Pilger referred to it in 1975 when the then governor general, only the British sovereign's representative and not supposedly being anything but a figure head removed the then prime minister. At the time the governor general was a member of a CIA front organization and that's been documented by no less than to my knowledge both Jonathan Kwitney and John Pilger.
At least back then Australian Labor in 1975 stood by its leader and prime minister.
AD
Nepal is going to save the world from being polluted!!!
Being sarcastic is getting to be a habit. Tony
' a era da estupidos'..............
There are three essetial reform measures for avoiding an inhabitable climate, world wars for the remaining resources & food, and the end of life as we know it.
Defang the political interests that are blocking these vital reforms.
Halt population growth is paramount--education of women is essential for this.
Reduce consumption of non renewable and toxic energy sources while waging efforts for development of clean energy on the scale of the World War 2.
The UN should be dismantled!!! Giving the bottom-feeder blood suckers respectability - most probably in exchange for financial contributions so that UN people can travel in style. And the white race keeps sucking other cultures as it has always done.
Not useful, removed.
It wasn't so long ago that if you opposed Cap and Trade you were against GW, you didn't understand how important it was for the world to indulge in this Carbon scheme, you were a troll, you were just ignorant.
Its about time the blinders came off and people see these types of schemes for exactly what they are. Money makers or power grabs. They were never anything else.
No. Your post is nonsense.
The propoonents of strong action on AGW NEVER supported cap and trade, and always understood it as the scam that it is. They always supported a stiff carbon-content tax - imposed at the wellhead and tipple, and strong regulations, government funding and incentives for conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy.
But, in a manner similar to criticism of the healthcare bill from the right, criticism of cap and trade from the denialist-right has NOTHING to do with promoting more effective and just alternatives for addressing AGW.
Apparently, you are too stupid to have understood that when you criticise cap and trade from the point of view of denialism, people are criticising your denialism, not defending cap-and-trade.
The stupidity comes from those that were high behind the Cap and Trade nonsense and all the rest of the Carbon taxing mumbo jumbo.
"The proponents of strong action on AGW NEVER supported cap and trade, and always understood it as the scam that it is"
I'm afraid this statement is just laughable. Its not hard to remeber the chorus of the Cap and Trade supporters. Or the articles on CD and across the board.
Stupidity is the lack of critical thinking, the inability to do naught but parrot DNC talking points, the need for choir practice.
Perhaps you could consider your remarks in light of real information rather than prejudice. Your statements about me are incorrect.
"Cap and Trade" and carbon offset schemes are just that, a way to scheme more money from hard working americans and europeans and give it as a forced charitable handout to poorer countries. Incredibly that includes China, who has the 2nd largest economy in the world. These schemes have nothing to do with limiting carbon emissions. Even if all the schemeing liberals and loony lefties had there way got their legislation passed, carbon emissions would continue to increase worldwide. Probably even faster than it is now, as carbon emitting production/energy facilities and would be moved to poorer countries where standards are more lax.
So, Rob, this means you support a global carbon tax? Which will reduce our imports of petroleum from nasty countries around the world that hate us; which will stimulate new industries, inventions, manufacturing, and jobs in the U.S. related renewable energy development; which will slow AGW; and which will make the U.S. more economically competitive with China and Germany and other countries that are currenlty leaving us in their dust as they develop cutting-edge renewable-energy technology?
Cool! Welcome aboard the carbon tax bandwagon!
Yep, those were indeed the false claims being made for Carbon taxing.
But never fear, your President has ensured that we will be importing more foreign oil and that the cost will be going up with his moratorium. That more coal will be used. Supported by those self same schemers.
No. More gibberish.
In your scientifc illiteracy, you don't apparently know that the carbon-content per unit of energy for coal is cuch higher than oil, therefore, coal would be taxed much more, discouraging its use.
I hate to tell you this, but there is NOT going to be a tax on carbon. Coal use is not being discouraged, its being accelerated. You seem to have missed the point of what I said. But I do appreciate the civil tone.
If we do not produce oil in the gulf we must replace that energy from somewhere. And even ole' nasty Fox is correct about this. Rigs that have left and are leaving will be a while coming back. Both coasts refuse to produce energy, so how do we replace it?
In other words, energy independence, green energy, research, etc is all being set back by these goof balls in Washington. Obnama is doing more damage on every side than anyone can keep up with.
Seriously, how much energy research do you believe will be gotten thru a republican Congress? Signed by a republican President?
So, basically, you argue that becasue things are getting worse, we should give up?
Read Hansen's essay on todays CD.
CERTAINLY NOT! ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I'm trying to say these Bozo's have put us all behind the 8 ball. That what we have been doing is NOT working, that The trick is to find out HOW the damage can be repaired.
Alcyon and Ubrew 12 convinced me of AGW, I just don't know if any real avenue can be found to repair the damage. But trying to push people doesn't work. And I believe that timing must be considered.
Edit: "What I found in each case was greenwash – a pretence of concern about climate but policies dictated by fossil fuel special interests"
Exactly what I was talking about. And it is ALL that way or will turn that way. Thats the problem.
No leftist supports the capitalist cap-and-trade scheme. They support stiff taxes on carbon content and stiff regulation - the proceeds of those taxes going to non-carbon-based development and poverty relief.
What if a number of elements were presented to folks as being in their own interests, ie. save them money?
How about reducing energy consumption by tax credits, Credits ensure you must do it before you get your reward, unlike tax reductions. And aimed specifically at citizeens, not corporate entities.
I posted this on H's article but I want to know what you think about this, so I double posted it...sorry folks!
carbon offsets/cap and trade are capitalist crimes.